


Scissors

by vanitaslaughing



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: EDIT: i forgot the description. go me, Gen, fleeting mentions of the Haillenarte kids, this is very. hm.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-21
Updated: 2016-11-21
Packaged: 2018-09-01 08:47:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8617432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanitaslaughing/pseuds/vanitaslaughing
Summary: "How old is this infernal animal, anyway?""I'm... not entirely certain. She has been here for a rather long time."She's the Borel family cat... or something. But definitely more at times, be that positive or negative.





	

"How old is this infernal animal, anyway?"

"I'm... not entirely certain. She has been here for a rather long time."

"Mhm."

"Here, let me see how bad this scratch is this time."

"I could swear this thing's plotting my murder."

"Stop calling Cicilly a 'thing'."

"You sure her name's not 'scissors'?"

* * *

 

Naturally, pets in highborn houses were especially pampered. There were tales of these animals also causing all sorts of troubles, from an escaped tame tuco-tuco that injured five before it was caught, to Francel de Haillenarte's pet bird that got eaten by a hound and thus replaced with a mechanical one lovingly crafted by his eldest brother, or even the odd gaelicat which then proceeded to add another scar to the former Lord Commander's face.

House Borel, on the other hand, had this particularly pesky cat, which Aymeric had dragged in at some point when he was a child and the cat a kitten. Neither of his parents had the heart to refuse such an adorable picture, and Cicilly became a part of House Borel from that moment on. Of course she then turned out to be the exact opposite of her owner - where Aymeric was gentle and caring, the cat let all hatred and hell loose with her scratches. Where he was clever and selfless she was selfish and rather of the dumb end at times.

She attacked any visitors in the house, much to the despair of his father, but not a single person in the household had the heart to kick her out.

She kicked herself out for a week at some point, and Aymeric cried bitter tears at the age of 13 over this infernal cat from the deepest pits of the seventh hell - she came back after seven days, and everything proceeded as usual. At least until Aymeric, at the age of 20, returned from a few days on a mission. Cicilly had vanished as soon as he had set out, and she came back mere hours after he returned...

With a mechanical bird, torn to shreds in her mouth.

There were many ways to describe the Haillenarte children, but fighters the lot of them were not safe for the third son and the first daughter. The cold fury as Stephanivien de Haillenarte had to console his brother over losing even the mechanical, undying bird haunted Aymeric for a few years - he had no explanation as for why Cicilly had left, let alone 'murdered' a mechanical bird like this. Not a single person actually could explain it, and cats did not speak.

She actually looked rather smug there, which made Francel cry even harder and Stephanivien's lips nearly entirely vanished into a thin line as he squinted from cat to owner and back to the cat.

The one time the Haillenartes graced an invitation by the Borels, Aymeric could have sworn he had heard Francel beg his brother Chlodebaimt to stop Stephanivien from seeking out Cicilly and tossing her out of the window in revenge for the broken mechanical bird (which he had oddly enough never replaced). Thus he kept an eye on the oldest noble, but other than the cranky expression similar to that of Cicilly there were no attempts at caticide.

Aymeric learned later that the only thing that quelled Stephanivien de Haillenarte's thirst for revenge that day had been the fact he had gotten into a fight with his father over the amount of time he spent at the workshop - not the first, and not the last for him, unfortunately, but it served to prolong Cicilly's life.

* * *

 

One person she absolutely loathed, Aymeric realised, was Estinien Wyrmblood.

The man had to just pass the house and she would turn into a hissing and spitting mess that hurled itself against the windows with her claws unsheathed. What exactly he had ever done to deserve such hatred neither of the men understood, and Aymeric hated locking her up - but most of the time he tried to do so whenever Estinien dropped by. Of course she then managed to be clever for a while and escape the room through whatever means or unfortunate circumstances, and Estinien swore that this cat had wounded him more than any dragon he had and ever would fight.

He called her 'scissors', and she answered with clawing his legs. She hissed, and he hissed back.

It was oddly endearing after a while, even if Estinien bled more than he liked to admit. Several of his scars which people assumed came from battle were instead just from Aymerics strangely aggressive cat - which was frankly kind of ridiculous, because she loved her owner and let him pet her without scratching him.

At some point Aymeric put a bell on her collar, and every time Estinien came he simply heard the bell ringing as she hurled herself at him.

He swore the soft jingling of that little bell mixed in with his nightmares of Ferndale burning - hyperbole, Aymeric assumed. He was rather incorrect, and Estinien did have a nightmare about Nidhogg with a bell tied around his neck once from which he awoke in cold sweat.

He didn't visit Borel household for a while after that.

* * *

 

While many people hated her, Aymeric loved her. Especially during the days following his detainment in the Vault she was the one who was there when he was kept awake but everyone else had already passed out. He had clung to her as a child at night whenever he had a nightmare and did not want to wake his parents, and once more he found himself reaching out to her. There was something calming about the soft jingling as she started purring, and she always rolled up next to him. Her presence at night was soothing, especially when he nearly expected another hit or kick or another Haurchefant Greystone dying for his own stupidity.

And when the Scions and the Warrior of Light returned from Azys Lla, Cicilly was there, sitting opposite him and blinking slowly as Aymeric tried to understand what they had told him. He had assumed Estinien would lay down the title of Azure Dragoon after this, now with Nidhogg gone and--

Before he had even realised she had bumped her head against his face - it kept him from crying right there in that very moment.

The servant even went as far as to bring her to him after the failed assassination attempt, as much as she then proceeded to torment poor Lord Artoirel and Count Edmont - something about this cat kept Aymeric from going insane, and kept his mind from brooding whenever she was around, which helped him recover.

Even as the peace conference failed and Nidhogg declared war on them, a full-blown war this time, it was Cicilly who was essentially responsible for the Lord Commander to not collapse onto his bed and scream for several hours.

* * *

 

In the long run, Cicilly had effectively shown Stephanivien de Haillenarte a flaw with his designs by destroying the bird as he later realised - much later. This knowledge helped him construct the replacement autoturrets for the tourney, and led to the first Haillenarte-Fortemps victory since the days of his father attending tourneys as participant rather than viewer. Had he not essentially been challenged again as soon as the tourney was over he would have sought out the Lord Commander and asked him to thank his cat for that mess with the mechanical bird.

It was one of the nastier scratches that had opened up that had awoken Estinien Wyrmblood in the infirmary - it stung even through his aether and nightmare-muddled sleep, until eventually he blinked open his eyes only to get yelped at by Alphinaud Leveilleur.

* * *

 

"Hey, scissors."

A soft meeping sound.

"You quite sure you're not a dragon, old girl? Well, even if you are, you're safe from my lance now."

Aymeric choked back a sob as Estinien, for the first time in his entire life, just gave Cicilly a soft bop on the head. Despite her hatred of him she tried to purr there - this was not what Estinien had expected to return to when he came back to Ishgard after an extended period of absence following his sudden disappearance from the infirmary. But here he sat, one arm around the silently crying Aymeric, the old cat barely even caring he was there.

Apparently not getting attacked by her was something like getting accepted into the family, for she had never really attacked Aymeric's parents nor most of the long-term servants. Estinien simply wondered if he was simply tolerated for Aymeric's sake, or if she finally thought he had been employed as servant of some sort.

Or maybe she just didn't recognise him without most of his armour, like most people in Ishgard did.

"... Why are you crying, anyway?"

Aymeric cringed a little, just as Estinien cringed when Cicilly rolled over and the bell gently jingled.

"... you."

"What was that?"

"I'm happy to see you."

"And here I thougt you were crying because of that nasty scratch across your face," Estinien muttered and started slowly removing his arm from Aymeric's shoulders. "I thought I was the scratching tree."

Aymeric flinched a little. "Don't! Don't touch--! Ow!"

Cicilly, from her pillow, hissed and tried clawing Estinien, who was long since used to her shenanigans.

"Sorry, sorry, I won'tdo that again. ... Though, say, Aymeric. How old is good 'ol scissors again?"

The black-haired man shrugged a little as he rubbed his forehead. He had no idea and long since stopped counting the years - he knew she was extremely old for a cat and the fact she wasn't wildly attacking Estinien anymore was most likely caused by sheer age rather than any less than unrelenting internal rage.

Not that he was complaining at this point, because Estinien gently petting her to soothe her anger was just about as adorable as he had always imagined it to be.

**Author's Note:**

> you sure thats a cat and not a needle pillow you got there, aymeric
> 
> also im working on the next chapter of eyes (un)seeing, if the a11s clear high keeping me awake until 10 in the morning had one positive side its that my coca cola caffeine driven sleepless brain managed to knock down my writer's block regarding the lorebook shattering nearly everything i had planned for the fic, so, shoutout for cruise chaser for making me no longer pace...........
> 
> foward and back
> 
> (badum tsh. i am escorted off the stage and someone breaks the alexandrian visor of maimimg i got from the clear)


End file.
